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Death Knight
Blizzard's original death knight concept was that of an undead spellcaster unit which made its initial appearance in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.http://www.battle.net/war2/units/deathknight.shtml This death knight could be more accurately described as a horseback-mounted lich rather than the traditional death knight commonly depicted in other fantasy games. Years later, Blizzard introduced a new death knight hero-class unit in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and this second rendition was revised to reflect the general characteristics of the more traditional death knight design. To understand the key differences between these two different generations of death knight, see the 'Types of Death Knights' section located further down this page. http://www.battle.net/war3/undead/units/deathknight.shtml. The death knight was later adapted as a prestige class within the Warcraft RPG. It is the first hero class in World of Warcraft and was introduced in the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Talents Death knight talents are split into 3 trees, each of which is fully capable of supporting either a tanking or DPS melee role: *'Blood:' This tree primarily amplifies the death knight's melee spells, weapons, and abilities; and has a prominent health-regeneration theme. *'Frost:' This tree has many control elements, with a strong critical-strike/bonus-damage theme, as well as several talents that improve physical-damage mitigation. *'Unholy:' This tree has a heavy focus on diseases and related abilities, as well as improving summoned minions. Also has AoE, spell damage shielding, and mobility-improvement sub-themes. Lore Death knight is the name of a class shared by two separate organizations of powerful necromancers. These orders share a few things in common, including riding horses with horned skulls and many of the same abilities. Shadows of Justice Orgrim Doomhammer's first act as the new Warchief of the Horde was to crush the orc warlocks of the Shadow Council. He grudgingly spared the council's former master, Gul'dan, in exchange for the warlock's servitude; in turn Gul'dan promised to create a host of powerful new warriors to serve the Horde. After experimenting at length with the souls of the recently slain council members, Gul'dan successfully instilled the spirit of the necrolyte Teron Gorefiend into the corpse of a fallen knight of Stormwind. Thus, the first terrifying death knight was born. Gul'dan transformed his other council members as well, creating a vast legion of unholy warriors whom sowed chaos and fear throughout the land of Azeroth during the Second War. Following Gul'dan's desertion and death, part of the Horde, including the death knights, retreated through the Dark Portal to Draenor. Most of the surviving death knights disappeared after Draenor's destruction, though some of these death knights, along with Ner'zhul's other prominant spell casters, were later captured by the Burning Legion and transformed into liches. These liches were stripped of their free will by the Demon Lord, Kil'jaeden and were reappointed into the service of his new pet, The Lich King, in order to better assist him with his task. These liches served as Scourge spell casting hero-class units in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Blizzard eventually unveiled the whereabouts of a powerful death knight who had escaped the fate of his kin, Teron Gorefiend, a malevolent abomination whose restless and embittered form now resides in the Black Temple of Outland. In a quest chain beginning with: ‘Teron Gorefiend, I am..’, he deceives players with a fabricated account of history that tricks them into assisting him, and thus the deception ultimately results in his release from eternal imprisonment. Based on the logic that his entire story was a nothing more then a ruse, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there may be numerous first generation death knights, like Gorefiend, who escaped the legion's capture and still exist in their original form. Champions of the Lich King Years after the destruction of Draenor, the immensely powerful Lich King created a new breed of death knights: malevolent, rune-wielding warriors of the Scourge. The first and greatest of these was the Lich King's chosen champion (vessle), Prince Arthas Menethil, once a mighty paladin of the Silver Hand, who sacrificed his soul to claim the runeblade Frostmourne in a desperate bid to save his people. Unlike Gul'dan's Death Knights, these dark champions do not possess free will and their minds are inexorably entwined with and dominated by the Lich King's vast consciousness. Despite the heavy costs of free will, some powerful mortals are intrigued by the promise of immortality and pledge their souls freely into the Lich King's service to achieve it. (Baron Rivendare is an example of this). In the years since Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne and merged with the Lich King, the power and fury of the death knights has only grown. Now these unrelenting crusaders of the damned eagerly await the Lich King's command to unleash their fury on Azeroth once again.:From official death knight Lore. The Ebon Blade The Knights of the Ebon Blade is a faction consisting of the renegade death knights that broke free of the Lich King's control after the battle of Light's Hope Chapel (in other words, player-created death knights). Led by Highlord Darion Mograine, the Knights of the Ebon Blade have allied themselves with the Alliance and the Horde with the help of Highlord Tirion Fordring of the Knights of the Silver Hand, and have pledged to do their part in defeating their former master, the Lich King. Their main base is Acherus: The Ebon Hold, a former scourge necropolis in the Eastern Plaguelands. (It should be noted that the Knights of the Ebon Blade are not a separate player faction such as the Alliance and Horde. For the purposes of gameplay, player-created death knights still belong to either the Alliance or the Horde depending on their race.) Notable Death Knights in the Lore * - Arthas Menethil (Now the Lich King) * - Darion Mograine * - Alexandros Mograine (Current whereabouts unknown) * - Teron Gorefiend (1st generation death knight) * - Baron Rivendare Types of Death Knights 1st Generation: Death Knights of the Old Horde A first generation death knight was essentially the soul, knowledge, memory, and personality of an orc warlock that was imbued into reanimated corpse of a fallen knight of Azeroth. Unlike modern death knights of the Scourge, these ghoulish fiends were not battle hardened warriors; they were insidious necromancers who possessed superior intellect and tremendous magical power. They often favored the use of terror tactics and reanimated the corpses of enemy soldiers who fell in battle to serve them as mindless undead minions. These skeletal soldiers served to shield the death knight from enemy attacks, allowing them to unleash their deadly eldritch sorcery from range. 2nd Generation: Death Knights of the Scourge A second generation death knight is essentially the body, soul, knowledge, memory, and personality of a fallen hero who was reanimated into a preternatural state of eternal undeath by the Lich King. Unlike death knights of the Old Horde, modern death knights are not limited to their use of ranged spell casting abilities. Modern death knights are exceptionally skilled in the arts of physical combat and further augment their formidable melee abilities with the use of powerful blood, frost, and unholy disciplines. In terms of relative strengths, modern Death Knights are more versatile then their first generation predecessors due to their ability to effectively engage enemies in the physical rigors of close quarters combat. However, both generations are equally destructive and terrifying to engage in the field of battle. The will to fight against all odds In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, player-created death knights revolt against the Lich King and ally themselves with their former factions. A player's free will is restored to them during a death-knight-specific quest event involving an epic battle against the legendary paladin, Tirion Fordring, the cleansed Ashbringer, and the forces of the Argent Dawn. The specific details of this event will be left undiscussed as spoilers would surely spoil the fun for many. Hero class overview The criterion for creating a death knight is the existence of a level 55+ characterhttp://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/deathknight/gameplay.xml on the player's account for that realm. The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies. Players might be familiar with the death knight from previously released Warcraft games — most recently, in the campaigns for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne expansion, the former paladin Arthas became a death knight and wrought havoc across Azeroth before fusing with the spirit of Ner'zhul to become the Lich King. It is important to note that these particular death knights are based upon those created by the Lich King in Warcraft III, not those of Orcish origin as seen in WarCraft II. Unlocking your death knight The death knight is the first hero class in World of Warcraft. This is a separate character from other characters and can be created as soon as one of your existing characters on a given server reaches level 55. After making a death knight, you will not lose access to any of your existing characters. The death knight will start at level 55 in Acherus: The Ebon Hold over the Eastern Plaguelands, with multiple spells and abilities ready to use, and a set of gear. When you leave Ebon Hold, you will have a full set of gear ready for Outland. Through the Death-Knight-specific quests in this necropolis and the surrounding areas, the character learns to master the power of the death knight and learns to use this new power for the will of the Lich King. Quests will take them outside the necropolis and into an area within the Scarlet Enclave. Players can create one death knight per realm as long as they have at least one character that is level 55 on the realm they wish to create it on. As of patch 3.0.8, this will no longer be the case. Only a level 55 character will be needed, afterwards you can make a Death Knight on any server. There are no racial limitations for creating your death knight, but PvP servers are still limited by faction (i.e., if you have an Alliance character on a PvP server, you cannot make a Horde death knight on that PvP server). The Rune System The death knight uses a unique rune-based resource system to govern his spells and abilities. Three rune types exist: blood, frost, and unholy; each with an attached color and symbol. As they use their abilities, the runes will be exhausted. After a period of time (10 seconds) the runes will refresh.http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6417312045&sid=1 The death knight will be able to use spells to turn a rune into a Death Rune, which can be used as a Blood/Frost/Unholy rune. In addition, whenever the death knight uses a rune ability against a foe, it will build up a certain amount of Runic Power. This Runic Power is only used by few abilities. Certain abilities (such as Dancing Rune Weapon) will completely drain all the Runic Power that has been accumulated. The more power stored, the more effective the ability. Most abilities that use Runic Power use a set amount, like Death Coil. Death knights cannot reallocate the number and type of runes - they are fixed to two runes of each type.http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8202574912&pageNo=1&sid=2000#10 Runeforging will still be available, but it will only provide permanent weapon enchants. The enchants work just like the permanent weapon enchants provided by Enchanting, but are self-only and are supposed to be better for the death knight than the Enchanting ones. The original player frame for death knights shown at BlizzCon has changed as feedback showed it was not ideal for displaying rune power for players. Character's Role In general, the death knight can be considered a hybrid melee class that combines damage dealing and tanking, somewhat akin to Warriors. They wear plate armor and are able to dual-wield or use two-handed blade weapons (and maces, as revealed recently). Like Druids, they tank without shields. Their tanking mechanics involve high armor and a high chance to parry.http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/872730p2.html http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/872730p2.html Like every other class, the death knight has three different talent trees that enhance certain aspects of his or her specialties. However, the differences between the trees are not as clear-cut as those of other classes, both for PvP and PvE environments. Blood enhances the death knight's melee abilities and damage and vastly improves the ability to heal itself. As the name suggests, the special abilities it grants through talents are based off of the Blood Runes. Blood also provides healing utility to party and raids and has some very useful buffs that the Death knight can cast on others, such as Hysteria and Mark of Blood. Frost enhances melee abilities and focuses on increasing single target damage. Its special abilities focus on the use of Frost Runes. As the prefferable spec for tanking, it provides useful emergency physical damage mitigation spells like Lichborne and Unbreakable Armor and greatly enhances magical damage mitigation. Frost also provides some very powerful direct damage abilities like Frost Strike and Howling Blast, since Death Knights depend on high damage output to hold aggro instead of the spamming of high threat abilities (of which they are incapable). As such, the Frost tree is viable for solo questing. Parties and Raids benefit from this talent tree by gaining spell resistance and attack speed haste. Unholy enhances the death knight's diseases and damage over time spells, making them effective at AoE DPS. It also provides the death knight with a ghoul who is a permanent pet, a gargoyle guardian he or she can summon, some extra diseases, and the useful ability to resurrect as a ghoul and keep on fighting for 45 seconds. Raid and Party utility is granted through the use of Unholy Aura which boosts movement speed and through the Anti-Magic zone. Runeforging Runeforging allows the death knight to permanently enchant their weapon, and thus overwrites any weapon enchants from Enchanting. A player will have to be near a runeforge in order to forge a rune onto their weapon. Concept artwork Image:Death Knight06.jpg|Death knight concept art Image:Death Knight02.jpg|Death knight concept art Image:DeathKnightRaneman2.jpg|Death knight art by Raneman. Image:DeathKnightRaneman.jpg|Death knight art by Raneman. See also *Death knight organizations *List of death knights References External links : : : Category:Death knights Category:Hero classes Category:Wrath of the Lich King Category:WoW classes Category:RPG classes Category:Prestige classes